I hate myself.

I'm sorry you guys. Times have been really bad for me. I just want this finished. And I want to keep moving on as well. I know most of you might have grown tired of Detective School Q…but I want to keep it alive. I want to at least have SOME kind of purpose in even though I make plots almost rarely.

I would just like to say to ALL my readers, yes, ALL of you, even those who have stopped reading: THANK YOU. Thank you all so much for giving me a start in this whole fanfic-writing business. Thank you for the reviews, the support, the comments, the love, and most of all, for your time.

I love you all.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN DETECTIVE SCHOOL Q. Satou Fumiya deserves your worship and love more than me.

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Chapter 15: Things Fall into Place

A red dawn descended on the violin school. Shizuko winced as a flash of light pierced through the room's blinds, making perfect contact with her closed eyelids, making her wake rather abruptly from a disturbing night's sleep.

As she muttered and grumbled, trying to get up from the bed, she vaguely made out the slumped form of Ryuu over the room's desk. He'd fallen asleep there, and it didn't look too comfortable a position for him.

As she tried to focus her blurry vision, her classmate's features became a little more distinct. Her feet busily shuffled around the edge of the bed, trying to reach the floor to search for her slippers—

Crash.

"Ow."

She didn't bother to get up from the floor, still feeling rather groggy. "Murghpph blurghl," she muttered unintelligibly against the wooden planks.

A few moments later, Ryuu extended his hand to help her up. "Good morning," he said by way of greeting.

"G' morning," Shizuko replied, still sleepy. She grasped his hand and he helped her up. "Sorry for waking you."

"It's not a problem. Did you sleep well?"

She brought her hand to her face, trying to work the sleep gunk out of her eyes with her fingers. "Not really," she answered, looking a little childish as she did so. "Nightmares, mostly."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, it's nothing. It wasn't that horrible."

They both heard a mild shuffling of feet at the door, so Ryuu peeked through the peephole. "It's Kazuma," he said, opening the door.

"Well, good morning. Looks like you guys didn't sleep well," greeted the pint-sized computer genius.

"You got that right," Shizuko mumbled.

"Yeah," Ryuu muttered.

"This ought to cheer you guys up, then," Kazuma continued, closing the door carefully with his foot as he brought out his beloved laptop. "I managed to figure out what The Nine Circles of Hell is hiding."

"You did?" asked Shizuko a little excitedly. "Is it a will?"

"You'll find out later. We've got the get the rest of Class Q in on this. And aside from that. I got further details on Daisuke's autopsy."

"So what was the story?" inquired Shizuko, curious. "Was he really poisoned with the roses?"

"Yes," said Kazuma. "The poison is known as Strychnine. It's—"

"I've read about that," interrupted the dark-haired girl. "It was used before in arrow poisons."

"That's right. It comes from the Strychnine tree, an evergreen that's native to Southeast Asia. We've probably got some species scattered around the country too. And this place, even though a lot of construction has gone on to build this school; it's a wide open area suitable for the habitat of one of these trees."

"I checked Daisuke's pulse when we came into the room," put in Ryuu. "He was oddly stiff already, and rigor mortis already set in. It's an effect of the poison, I suppose?"

"Yeah," stated Kazuma. "Strychnine produces some of the most dramatic and horrible deaths. It's often been used in film and literature.

"Strychnine causes muscular convulsions, ending in asphyxia or total exhaustion. You get muscle spasms that spread all over the body starting from the head and heck, and any other stimulus would only make it worse. And then your body would freeze, causing rigor mortis to set in."

"It's one of the worst deaths imaginable," commented Shizuko.

At that moment, Kyu, Kinta and Meg carefully opened the door and entered the room.

"Are we all ready?" asked Kyu, holding up his DDS badge.

Everyone else nodded. One by one, each of the young detectives fastened their badges on their collars.

"Let's go catch ourselves a killer."

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Four DDS students entered the music room later that afternoon.

Kyu, Meg, Kazuma and Ryuu all looked around the area with grim expressions on their faces.

Five pairs of eyes stared at them apprehensively. Kazumi's expression looked particularly scared. Yamato's face was beset with confusion and slight anger. Satoshi looked annoyed, while Minoru simply looked curious.

Ms. Minamoto could only do nothing but look both relieved that she had mot been arrested the day before, but like Minoru, she was also curious to hear what the four young detectives had to say.

Kyu started. "I suppose you're all wondering what we've all called you here for."

"Like heck we are," grumbled Satoshi, irritated. "What's the big idea?"

"You will all know in due time," responded Ryuu calmly.

"First of all," persisted Kyu, "We all came here a few days ago, coming onto the campus as friends of Minoru. In actual fact, we came here because Minoru asked us for help. We are from DDS."

The usual expressions of startled surprise broke out all over the room.

"DDS?" whispered Kazumi in awe, "The one that's run by the famous Morihiko Dan?"

"The one and same," said Kazuma, opening up his computer.

"Minoru, is that true?" asked Yamato, turning to the green-eyed young violinist. Minoru only nodded mutely in response.

"We came here to solve the death of Fumika, but we were bombarded with more deaths as we stayed. We had no choice but to take on each one of them as well…and today, everything finally fell into place," added Meg.

"There are 3 clues!" pronounced Kyu, raising three fingers, as was his habit. "One, is the Maestro's final work, The Nine Circles of Hell. The second clue was the details that surrounded the death of Daisuke. And the third…was a lie told during the police interrogation."

"There can only be one answer!" he said finally, leaving the rest of them confused and staring back at him, eyes contracted in sudden dread.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rants: CLIFFHANGER! End coming very soon. FINALLY, The Nine Circles of Hell is coming to a close! Stay tuned for the last chapter: The Grand Finale. Hope you enjoyed the (long and seemingly unending) progress I've made so far, and…

PLEASE REVIEW!